by James Mirtle @ 5:56 PM
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** Note that I haven't posted regularly on this blog since October, 2008. My work can now be found at globesports.com **
A sportswriter at The Globe and Mail, James covers the NHL and blogs regularly at Globe on Hockey. James is also a member of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association, a senior editor with McKeen's Hockey and was the NHL network manager at SB Nation from 2008 to 2010. A graduate of Thompson Rivers and Ryerson universities, he grew up in Kamloops, B.C. — one of Canada's great hockey cities — and was a season ticket holder in the Blazers' glory years.
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9 Comments:
What's Mike Brophy's deal? If don't think guys like Rory should go despite the fact that there were plenty of votes, why have fan voting at all? It's clearly not so much an "All star" game as it is a "popularity" game. If it was an all star game, players would just be granted passage according to statistics.
"Internet geeks?" Give me a break.
I'm not sure if this was the most pressing lesson the NHL needed to learn. Howsabout they they learn that "Field of Dreams" isn't a model for placing new franchises.
I'm surprised it took this long for something like the "Rory" campaign to take place. Some fans in the past were stuffing the internet ballot box in the past for their favourite players.
Can't they just release the names of the all-stars one month before the game and have fans pick the starters?
Everybody wins!
In the quest to send an "everyman" NHL'er to the ASG, one would be led to assume that such an "everyman" would politely refuse such a twisted honour. Kudos to Rory for killing this thing by saying he wouldn't have gone.
What's next, electing a dishwasher for Prime Minister? He might look less out of place than a journeyman defenseman amongst the games elite!
For myself, the "Story of Rory" was much more about the power of the internet than the player. There could be a very positive slant to this, and it could be put to much better use. Power in numbers need not be used in such futility,
Imagine the idea of doing something good with this mass of rabid fanaticism, then sitting back and taking some pride in it!
It might not be as cynically bent as this Rory thing was, but it would make a way better case for interner fans and bloggers to be a more respected voice.
With this notion, I wrote a post called "Bloggers Can Aim Higher Than Rory" - to make the point. You can find it at this link:
http://wwwrealitycheckeyesontheprize.blogspot.com/2006/12/internet-hockey-community-has-recently.html#links
Duhatschek's argument that the fans "want to see new faces" is legitimate so long as the votes tabulated for Fitzpatrick actually represent the number of people who voted for him.
But since it was clear from the beginning that the process was hijacked by a small group of "fans" wanting to laugh at the league, his argument is groundless. How can it be argued that this is a grassroots movement representing a trend in general fan interest when voters on various websites are bragging about stuffing the online voting box with thousands of votes? This entire thing was kept alive by a handful of people with too much time on their hands.
It would be interesting if ISP's to the ballot box could looked up to see exactly how many individual people actually voted for Rory...
I'm just glad I'll never hear about this guy again.
What a waste of bandwidth, voting hundreds of times a day! Hope these nerds learned their lesson...
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/instigator/gfx/2006-07/its-over.html
Yeah, and Fitzpatrick fans were the only ones stuffing ballot boxes. And they were all "computer geeks".
To quote a certain know-it-all: gimmee a break.
Damn those computer geeks anyway, they should just go back to their computers and leave hockey alone!
come on fitzpatrik he sucks compared to phanuef and nydermiar they are the greaets notd some stupid fitzpatrik
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